branding in the era of the remix
January 23rd, 2009 • posts i've written
Mike, Faris and I were all contacted by Ben Alter, a grad student at the VCU Brandcenter to help answer one huge question:
Do you think there are any major ramifications for companies/brands knowing that the next generations connective tissue is this sharing, participating, and remixing of ideas?
Ben, my answer is yes. Thanks for the question. Now here’s a funny video.
I kid. I kid. Mike and Faris both took an eloquent stab at an answer, so I’ll do my best not to simply repeat them.
Recombinance is not a marketing strategy. Recombinance is a behavior. And it’s how culture advances. Technology has only further enabled remixing of content; but it’s less important how and more important why.
If you stand for nothing, no one will stand with you. Remixing is a form of personal expression in relation to something else. If you provide no stimuli, you can’t expect the behavior. From time to time, novelty can stand in for a lack of belief or values. But novelty is a diminishing resource by definition.
Brands have a myopic fascination with the effect, while they ignore the cause. Faris made the excellent point that remixes are sexy to brands because they’re a form of media that gets shared (and we like for the word to be spread). And brands are practiced at creating content that would never be spread by actual non-zombies: the dreaded press release, or a shallow micro-site, or banner ad, or interstitial video ad. Brands have perfected a model that is unremarkable. Instead of building a strategy around being remixed, brands should dedicate themselves to being remarkable.
Trying to control digital manipulation is the new tilting at windmills. You can’t influence culture without influencing culture. Certainly not all remixes are positive, so again, focus on your brand and what you stand for.
The rate of change will only increase. Having the ability to drag and drop pre-made elements to create something unique means that creation is more accessible and rapid. The pace also applies to building things like interactions: kids are out there building the next Facebook while brand managers review their :30 spots.
It’s time to create or capture more content, and distribute it more quickly. By spreading a wide net of content, your audience will stumble across it as they like and craft their own personal story of your brand.
Whew, that’s enough for now. Mike, Faris, your serve.
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